‘British researchers who have seen drafts of last month’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became involved in writing it.

David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April 2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than expected because of “positive feedbacks” in the climate system. Most of these references were absent from the final version.

His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists’ report and the final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of more than 100 governments. Wasdell told New Scientist: “I was astounded at the alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific material is overwhelming.”

He has prepared a critique, “Political Corruption of the IPCC Report?”, which claims: “Political and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material.”

Wasdell’s central charge is that “reference to possible acceleration of climate change [was] consistently removed” from the final report. This happened both in its treatment of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels.

For instance, the scientists’ draft report warned that natural systems such as rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas emissions. It said: “This positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2 °C of added warming by 2100.” The final version does not include this figure. It acknowledges that the feedback could exist but says: “The magnitude of this feedback is uncertain.”

Similarly, the draft warned that warming will increase atmospheric levels of water vapour, which acts as a greenhouse gas. “Water vapour increases lead to a strong positive feedback,” it said. “New evidence estimates a 40 to 50 per cent amplification of global mean warming.” This was absent from the published version, replaced elsewhere with the much milder observation “Water vapour changes represent the largest feedback.”

The final edit also removed references to growing fears that global warming is accelerating the discharge of ice from major ice sheets such as the Greenland sheet. This would dramatically speed up rises in sea levels and may already be doing so. The 2006 draft said: “Recent observations show rapid changes in ice sheet flows,” and referred to an “accelerating trend” in sea-level rise. Neither detail made the final version, which observed that “ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica … could increase or decrease in future”. Wasdell points out recent findings which show that the rate of loss from ice sheets is doubling every six years, making the suggestion of a future decrease “highly unlikely”.

…

Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New Scientist: “The public needs to know that the policy-makers’ summary, presented as the united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.”

Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former ambassador to the UN, says: “I think David Wasdell’s analysis is very useful, and unique of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail.”

…

“However, if it is true [that political pressure resulted in changes to the report], it’s disappointing.”, says Mike Mann, director ot the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University in University park and a past lead author for the IPCC. “Allowing governmental delegations to ride into town at the last minute and water down conclusions after they were painstakingly arrived at in an objective scientific assessment does not serve society well.”’

Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New Scientist: “The public needs to know that the policy-makers’ summary, presented as the united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.”

Jon is at his cherry picking best again. Why is it when the IPCC waters down predictions from previous reports that it is suddenly wrong? I am glad that the scientists involved are starting to emphasize the uncertainties of the science and the dangers implicit in current climate modelling approaches that aren’t based on digesting actual data. Positive and negative feedbacks on climate are extraordinarily difficult to model given the lack of real-world data. Doesn’t mean they aren’t reasonable ideas and worthy of investigation, but also that no-one should bet the farm of catastrophes that emerge from a computer model.

Posted by Tomas on 21/03/07 at 08:21 AM

Frogs

If you put a frog into hot water, it will immediately jump out. However, if you put a frog into cold water and then slowly raise the temperature, it will sit there until the water boils and it is cooked to death.

The average person does not read scientific reports and shows little interest in them. They get their opinions from the watered down versions presented to them by the media, which is generally controlled, and from government spokesmen. Much of this opinion is driven by economics and the vested interests of business and is watered down to suit their political or financial interests. There are many clever people involved in this form of spin, who discredits, water down, or hide inconvenient data. One of the popular methods is to issue ‘Alternative Data’ and then declare, ‘There, you see, there is dissent, even among scientists!’ From this they then conclude that no scientific report can be fully trusted. Stay where you are, there is no need to panic or jump out of the water.

It needed an Al Gore to deliver the message of climate change in a popular format to wake people up to the reality of what is happening. Tell them that the temperature of the water actually is rising and they should consider jumping out before it is too late. The drama usually only hits the majority when the water is about to boil, and they find themselves in the middle of a drought, a flood, a cyclone or another catastrophic event.

It is not difficult for anyone to see that events in the world have become more dramatic in recent times with ever increasing reports of disaster, yet we still have the people such as Tomas declaring all is well and there is no need to panic. I wonder how he would have treated the reports of an imminent flood in the time of Noah? Maybe he would have stood on the prow of the Ark and as the water rose, preached to the people that they were still in no real danger!

I personally would prefer to trust the well researched reports of Jon Sumby than someone who I suspect has a very personal axe to grind.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 21/03/07 at 01:08 PM

Aaaaargh! Not the boiling frog *again*!

Many sources claim the boiling frog analogy is just a total urban myth, though on checking I find that there is still some debate about it. Some 19th century writers did say they got the result claimed, but only when the rate of heating was incredibly slow (fractions of a degree celsius per minute). In more recent experiments the frog has consistently jumped out, although the heating was somewhat less slow (about a degree celsius per minute). If Gerry Mander or anyone else knows any living qualified batrachologists who believe you can kill a frog in this manner, please advise!

The boiling frog analogy was widely used in reference to the Y2K bug. The gloomy projections proved false. Of course doomsayers always have that cop-out, that when their predictions prove false they just say it is because humanity listened to them and changed its ways.

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 21/03/07 at 09:33 PM

Whether or not the frog jumps out, you are deliberately missing the point. A little bit of obfuscation, but the analogy remains.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 22/03/07 at 07:40 AM

Mr Mander - I have a professional axe to grind. Your nasty comments about me elsewhere indicate that the personal feelings of animosity are all yours (and shared by others I assume of a similar ideological bent based on the vitriol).

Comments such as “It is not difficult for anyone to see that events in the world have become more dramatic in recent times with ever increasing reports of disaster” inidcate that you have not delved into the facts of the matter. As you may not be able to read the scientific papers, here is a reference to a recent article from the New York Times that you might want to take the time to read.

On dramatic weather patterns - most can be laid at the foot of standard weather-climate phenomena - eg El Nino. Even the IPCC now say that there is not global increase in numbers of events such as cyclones currently, but some models predict increased activity in the future (http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf). The effects of GW if it continuesin the future are likely to be region specific.

Posted by Tomas on 22/03/07 at 10:03 AM

Sir Nicholas Stern, British economist,academic, and author of The Stern Review will be speaking at the National Press Club on the topic:

‘The economics of climate change’

The 28th March, 12:30 pm on the ABC.

‘The Stern Review calls climate change “the greatest market failure the world has ever seen”. Warning that its effects over coming decades risk major disruption to economic and social activity on a scale similar to the great wars and economic depression of the first half of 20th century, the Review is an urgent call to action. It argues that tackling climate change can be a pro-growth strategy for rich and poor countries alike, concluding, “there is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now.”

Sir Nicholas Stern, is a British economist and academic. He was the Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 2000 to 2003, and is now a civil servant and government economic adviser in the United Kingdom.’ From the NPC website

“Philip Cooney, an oil industry lobbyist now working for Exxon Mobil, conceded during a congressional hearing yesterday that while he was chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality he watered down reports on the adverse effects of man-made emissions on the planet’s climate.

“My sole loyalty was to the President and advancing the policies of his administration,” Mr Cooney told the house government reform committee…”

Posted by Brenda Rosser on 22/03/07 at 10:43 AM

So it doesn’t matter if something is proved to be false you should still take the point its trying to make as if it were. Gee Gerry you should be a politician in toad hall.

40 percent thinning of arctic ice, BAH, what a crock. New Scientest has been discredited by critical scientests I belveve Jon. This is not a gullibility survey is it. Pull another rabbit out of your hat, the masses are lapping up your drugs and your have to find new ways to give it to them so they don’t get bored.

Look at at that, my Al Gore doll just kicked Boonie for not recycling his cans.

Posted by John Herbert on 22/03/07 at 10:53 AM

A few quotes from the New York Times

Typically, the concern is not over the existence of climate change, or the idea that the human production of heat-trapping gases is partly or largely to blame for the globe’s recent warming. The question is whether Mr. Gore has gone beyond the scientific evidence.

Mr. Gore depicted a future in which temperatures soar, ice sheets melt, seas rise, hurricanes batter the coasts and people die en masse. ‘‘Unless we act boldly,’’ he wrote, ‘‘our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.’‘

He clearly has supporters among leading scientists, who commend his popularizations and call his science basically sound. In December, he spoke in San Francisco to the American Geophysical Union and got a reception fit for a rock star from thousands of attendees.

‘‘He has credibility in this community,’’ said Tim Killeen, the group’s president and director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a top group studying climate change. ‘‘There’s no question he’s read a lot and is able to respond in a very effective way.’‘

Whether he is 100% accurate or not, Al Gore is pointing out in terms the masses are able to understand that the temperature of the water is rising. So what if some of the details are arguable or even inaccurate. The message is still there. The world is in serious trouble and it’s not getting better. If you’ve got any sense, you will listen and take appropriate action, or you might just end up like the ‘proverbial’ frog.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 22/03/07 at 01:38 PM

Mr Mander - you cherry pick as well as Jon Sumby - I encourage TTers to read the entire BALANCED article. Mr Mander may need to brush up on copyright law in the mean time.

Posted by Tomas on 22/03/07 at 09:30 PM

Come on “Gerry” (aka “Barnaby”), the whole point of an analogy is to claim that C will do D in situation X because A does B in situation Y, and (A,C) and (B,D) are supposed to be analogous, even though the whole idea of treating frogs as models for humans is absolute balderdash anyway.

Argument from analogy is dubious in the best of times, but if the claim on which the analogy is based is not even true to begin with, then what hope does such an argument have? The obfuscation is entirely yours.

Give the hackneyed tripe derived from the man who PJ O’Rourke brilliantly described as having “repulsive totalitarian inclinations and the brains of a King Charles Spaniel” a rest and stick to the facts in future!

PS Put me in the orange category on the top graph; the bottom graph is too simplistic to be bothered with.

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 22/03/07 at 11:45 PM

I really should thank Jon Sumby for introducing me to Spiked Online. Here is a fabulous op-ed piece on the issue of the politicisation of science in the GW debate.

Quoting from Tomas chosen ‘spiked-online’ article:
“In truth, there is no straight or logical line from the scientific finding that manmade CO2 is contributing to warming and the demand that we slow down development and change the way we live…”

First, climate change is not the only pressing environmental catastrophe panning out under our current unlimited production/consumption economy. The very fact that there are no limits drawn on ‘economic’ expansion in an obviously finite planet should have warning bells ringing for those that have an ounce of commonsense.

Second, there IS a logical line between manmade CO2 and a demand to change the way we live. As for ‘development’, this writer is unable to distinguish between uneconomic ‘development’ and the forms that will provide real improvements in our health, quality of life and activities that offer a future for our children.

One has to question the funding for a publication that makes such nonsensical assertions as these. Sure enough ‘Spiked’ receives funding from companies such as the Research Councils UK, Pfizer, Amazon.co.uk, Orange and Syngenta.

Notice how the masses have gone silent Tomas. They are happy to bleat about something they think they might be sure of but when there is an argument in opposition, off to their warrens they go.

Point in case, where are the great socialists who lobbied so hard for the betterment of Sub-Saharan Africa in the 60’s or even Malcolm Frazer in respect to Zimbabwe? Now that it is a complete basket case where the hell are they, oh that’s right they are busy trying to screw more Africans by telling them not to develop their countries because they think they might be sure that their mansions on the shorefront may get soggy. Arseholes.

The link was written by what I would term a wise man. Like you say, perhaps Jon Sumby is good for something even if it is for exposing his own zealotry.

All I know is that if you boil the frog too fast it’s not as good to eat. A slow simmer in a broth with sliced shallots, white pepper and a few capers does the trick.

As for the graph at the top, there should have been a category for “a serious problem, but one that can be overcome by taking immediate steps that cost very little” - a sort of orange with blue stripes.

Posted by Justa Bloke on 23/03/07 at 01:06 PM

# 10, 11, 17. The voice of the Croaking Chorus!

Anyone but a simpleton would recognise that the reference to boiling frogs is a mere illustration of the principle that if change or any other event that affects people happens gradually, they are less likely to notice than if it happened quickly. If they are not directly affected themselves, apathy will see to it that they take no action.

Memory is short, and this is what the politicians and their paid minions take advantage of. They can continue to push the commercial aspects that turn them into fat cats while pretending to be dealing with the problems. False, conflicting and watered down information fed to a gullible public, and the employment of scientific stooges to back their pre-conceived attitudes.

William James’s famous essay “The Will to Believe” exercised a profound influence on two other thinkers who found it essential to understanding both Italian fascism in particular and fantasy ideology in general — Vilfredo Pareto and Georges Sorel.
All three men begin with the same assumption: If human beings are limited to acting only on those beliefs that can be logically and scientifically demonstrated, they could not survive, simply because this degree of certainty is restricted only to mathematics and the hard sciences — which, by themselves, are not remotely sufficient to guide us through the world as it exists.

In short, there is a lot more to living then mere science, and even that is flawed. It might be better if we concentrated our efforts a little more on Saving the World, rather than nit-picking the temperature of the water when the frogs jump out!

Posted by Gerry Mander on 24/03/07 at 11:48 AM

No Gerry, the frog analogy is an attempt to *prove* that humans do not adapt to gradual change, and its purpose is to scare people into drastic measures that may in some cases be counterproductive and unnecessary. I have seen the same argument used by religious figures to argue against the creeping spread of “immorality” and justify extreme pro-censorship backlashes, but knowing your views I reckon that too would be right up your alley.

If you have evidence that humans cannot adapt adequately to gradual change then discuss it by reference to studies involving humans, not by reference to amphibians in a case where you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about anyway (and nor, evidently does the former vice-dingbat Mr Gore).

Dredging up primitive epistemology from a century or so ago and older also does your cause no credit. When it comes to philosophy of science my own experience as a person with degrees in both is that pretty much everything before Popper is useless and only worth studying as part of the history of ideas.

Humans are not restricted to acting on your bogus concept of “certainty” (which actually does not exist even in the hard sciences and is dubious even in mathematics given the foundational blows dealt by Godel and others, again after all this fossilised simpleness you regurgitate), but there is a great degree of difference between the idea of provisional truth sufficient for practical purposes (available to varying degrees in pretty much any rigorous empirical field of study) and alarmist twaddle about acting in way X because you don’t know thing Y will not happen.

Your argument, Mr Mander, is not so much croaking as croaked. It croaked several posts ago. Unfortunately it hasn’t shut up yet. Must be the amphibian equivalent of the headless chicken.

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 24/03/07 at 09:38 PM

SEA LEVEL ON THE RISE

‘An international team of climate scientists has cautioned against suggestions that the IPCC has previously overestimated the rate of climate change.

The team, from six institutions around the world, reviewed actual observations of carbon dioxide, temperature and sea level from 1990 to 2006 and compared them with projected changes for the same period.

In a review published in the journal Science today, the authors found that carbon dioxide concentration followed the modeled scenarios almost exactly, that global-mean surface temperatures were in the upper part of the range projected by the IPCC, and that observed sea level has been rising faster than the models had projected and closely followed the IPCC Third Assessment Report upper limit of an 88 cm rise between 1990 and 2100.

The scientists noted that because the review period (1990-2006) was short, it would be premature to conclude that sea levels will continue to increase at the same rate in the future. However, they also said their findings show that previous projections have not exaggerated the rate of change but may in some respects have underestimated it.’- NASA

‘KERRY O’BRIEN: Jim Hansen, now we’ve had the IPCC report, do you believe the world has an accurate picture of the risks ahead for global warming?

DR JAMES HANSEN, NASA CLIMATOLOGIST: There is quite a large gap between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by the public. The one thing that I’ve become particularly concerned about is sea level rise, where the current IPCC report is going to suggest smaller numbers than the last report, although all of the information that we’re getting in the last year or two points in a very much different direction.

Now, in defence of IPCC, their procedure required that they stop getting new [information] more than a year ago and a lot of the data on ice sheet stability has come up in just the last year or two.

KERRY O’BRIEN: What are your particular fears with regard to the melting of the polar ice caps?

JAMES HANSEN: Well, the problem is that the climate system in general has a lot of inertia and that means that it takes time for the changes to begin to occur but then, once they do get under way, it becomes very difficult to stop them and that is true in spades for the ice sheets. If we once begin to disintegrate it will become very difficult, if not impossible, to stop them and we are beginning to see now on both Greenland and west Antarctica disintegration of those ice sheets.

They’re both losing ice at a rate of about 150 cubic kilometres per year and that’s still not a huge sea level rise. Sea level rise is now going up about 3.5 centimetres per decade. So that’s more than double what it was 50 years ago. But it’s still not disastrous; it’s a problem, but it’s not disastrous. But the potential is for a much larger sea level rise.

If we get warming of two or three degrees Celsius, then I would expect that both West Antarctica and parts of Greenland would end up in the ocean, and the last time we had an ice sheet disintegrate, sea level went up at a rate of 5 metres in a century, or one metre every 20 years. That is a real disaster, and that’s what we have to avoid.

KERRY O’BRIEN: What is the most recent evidence of what’s really going on with the ice caps, the Arctic and the Antarctic?

JAMES HANSEN: There are two things that are cause of concern. First of all, if we look at the history of the Earth, we know that at the warmest interglacial periods, which were probably less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today, it was still basically the same planet. Sea level was perhaps a few metres higher.

But if we go back to the time when the Earth was two or three degrees Celsius warmer, that’s about three million years ago, sea level was about 25 metres higher, so that tells us we had better keep additional warming less than about one degree.

And the other piece of evidence is not from the history of the Earth but from looking at the ice sheets themselves, and what we see is that the disintegration of ice sheets is a wet process and it can proceed quite rapidly. We see that the ice streams have doubled in their speed on Greenland in the last few years and even more concern is west Antarctica because it’s now losing mass at about the same rate as Greenland, and west Antarctica, the ice sheet is sitting on rock that is below sea level.

So it is potentially much more in danger of collapsing and so we have both the evidence on the ice sheets and from the history of the Earth and it tells us that we’re pretty close to a tipping point, so we’ve got to be very concerned about the ice sheets.’ - The 7:30 Report

Posted by Jon Sumby on 25/03/07 at 12:34 PM

Gee Brenda it seems you are pointing to a dubious publication, not something you yourself woudl ever pander to is it.

And Jon just because you make something so painfully turgid to the point of being obtuse does not make it correct. Kerry’s eyes do get wide though when he yaps on about climate chnge , must be the votes he thinks Labour is going to get out of them.

Posted by John Herbert on 25/03/07 at 01:36 PM

SEA LEVEL ON THE RISE - 2

‘HOBART (Reuters, Fri Mar 23, 2007)

Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centers already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyze latest satellite data.

A United Nations report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February projected sea level gains of 18-59 centimeters (7-23 inches) this century from temperature rises of 1.8-4.0 Celsius (3.2-7.8 Fahrenheit).

“Observations are in the very upper edge of the projections,” leading Australian marine scientist John Church told Reuters.

“I feel that we’re getting uncomfortably close to threshold,” said Church, of Australia’s CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.

Past this level, parts of the Antarctic and Greenland would approach a virtually irreversible melting that would produce sea level rises of meters, he said.

There has been no repeat in the Antarctic of the 2002 break-up of part of the Larsen ice shelf that created a 500 billion ton iceberg as big as Luxembourg.

But the Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, and glaciers are in massive retreat.’ - Reuters

‘Sea levels are rising even faster than scientists predicted, according to a global analysis of data from tide gauges and satellites.

The researchers say the study puts to bed claims that climate scientists have exaggerated the consequences of global warming. And because the study shows that sea level is responding even faster than expected, the work suggests governments have even less time to act in order to combat climate change.’ - Guardian newspaper

There are more reports and analysis available from the international science journal, Science

Posted by Jon Sumby on 25/03/07 at 01:46 PM

Reuters, March 29, 2007.

“A Texas-sized piece of the Antarctic ice sheet is thinning, possibly due to global warming, and could cause the world’s oceans to rise significantly, polar ice experts said on Wednesday.

They said ‘surprisingly rapid changes’ were occurring in Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment, which faces the southern Pacific Ocean, but that more study was needed to know how fast it was melting and how much it could cause the sea level to rise.

The warning came in a joint statement issued at the end of a conference of U.S. and European polar ice experts at the University of Texas in Austin.

The scientists blamed the melting ice on changing winds around Antarctica that they said were causing warmer waters to flow beneath ice shelves. The thinning in the two-mile-(3.2-km)- thick ice shelf is being observed mostly from satellites, but it is not known how much ice has been lost because data is difficult to obtain on the remote ice shelves, they said.

Study is focusing on the Amundsen Sea Embayment because it has been melting quickly and holds enough water to raise world sea levels six meters, or close to 20 feet, the scientists said.”
____________________________________________

The world’s second largest ice cap may be melting three times faster than indicated by previous measurements, according to newly released gravity data collected by satellites.

The loss of ice from Greenland doubled between 1996 and 2005, as its glaciers flowed faster into the ocean in response to a generally warmer climate, according to a NASA/University of Kansas study. The newer measurements suggest the ice loss is three times that.

“Acceleration of ice mass loss over Greenland, if confirmed, would be consistent with proposed increased global warming in recent years, and would indicate additional polar ice sheet contributions to global sea level rise,” write the University of Texas researchers.

The study has been published in the journal Science. It concludes the changes to Greenland’s glaciers in the past decade are widespread, large and sustained over time. They are progressively affecting the entire ice sheet and increasing its contribution to global sea level rise.

Researchers Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam of the University of Kansas Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, Lawrence, used data from Canadian and European satellites. They conducted a nearly comprehensive survey of Greenland glacial ice discharge rates at different times during the past 10 years.

“The Greenland ice sheet’s contribution to sea level is an issue of considerable societal and scientific importance,” Rignot said. “These findings call into question predictions of the future of Greenland in a warmer climate from computer models that do not include variations in glacier flow as a component of change. Actual changes will likely be much larger than predicted by these models.”

Glacier acceleration has been the dominant mode of mass loss of the ice sheet in the last decade. From 1996 to 2000, the largest acceleration and mass loss came from southeast Greenland. From 2000 to 2005, the trend extended to include central east and west Greenland.
...
“In the future, as warming around Greenland progresses further north, we expect additional losses from northwest Greenland glaciers, which will then increase Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise,” Rignot said. The loss of Greenland’s ice sheet would raise sea level by about 6.5 metres. Source: NASA via Physorg; New Scientist

Syun-Ichi Akasofu
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Abstract: There seems to be a roughly linear increase of the temperature from about 1800, or even much earlier, to the present. This warming trend is likely to be a natural change; a rapid increase of CO2 began in about 1940. This trend should be subtracted from the temperature data during the last 100 years. Thus, there is a possibility that only a fraction of the present warming trend may be attributed to the greenhouse effect resulting from human activities. This conclusion is contrary to the IPCC (2007) Report, which states that “most” of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. One possible cause of the linear increase may be that the Earth is still recovering from the Little Ice Age. It is urgent that natural changes be correctly identified and removed accurately from the presently on-going changes in order to find the contribution of the greenhouse effect”

This guy is obviously some sort of oil company stooge. Sure Al Gore helped him get the International Arctic Centre started, but now we see his true colours by the evil of his academic questioning.

Posted by Tomas on 03/04/07 at 03:54 PM

Tomas, where do you find all these slanted reports you manage to publish?

Everyone else finds totally different facts, and you manage to stick out like a sore thumb.

BAsic history lesson. For the previous two thousand years, world population had remained fairly static, From 1800, the population of the world started to expand rapidly from about one and a half billion to the six billion plus that we have today. With this increase, there was a continual demand for an increase in energy, and coal, etc began to be mined in commercial. quantities. This coincided with a move away from the agrarian based society to the start of the Industrial Revolution. In those days, smoke and carbon dioxide pollution was not an issue - and indeed it hasn’t been until fairly recently, where the effects of all this cumulative pollution are beginning to make themselves felt.

It must be remembered that for every tonne of carbon burnt, two and a half tonnes of CO2 are generated and one and a half tonnes of available oxygen is removed from the atmosphere.

Added to this, we are also steadily removing the only filtering mechanism that is available to us - namely the forests. There is currently NO OTHER method available for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and replenishing the oxygen.

At the time that the coal and oil that we depend on was created, the atmosphere of this planet was unbreathable, and life as we know it could not exist. The oxygen was released and the carbon content was locked up in this fossil fuel, and there it remained until human beings decided to unlock this Pandora’s Box once more. We are now just beginning to see the results.

How long this can go on for is a subject for debate, but the final outcome is not seriously in doubt. There could come a tipping point from which there is a rapid rise in global temperature, with catastrophic results for life on earth. There are many lemmings who are prepared to take the risk, but I think the better option is to err on the side of caution. That is, of course, if you want to survive or you wish the world to have a future.

It would be nice if this time you could absorb the debunking of your analogy without too much pitiable wailing.

By the way, it may cramp my style a little but I will for a while be adding a disclaimer like the following once on each thread I comment on: “all views I express are my personal views and not necessarily those of any of my many employers.” And to bring back the style I may from time to time add that anyone who thinks otherwise is exceedingly dim. ;)

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 03/04/07 at 11:37 PM

Hey Kevin,

I have no intention of leaving lemmings out ot this. Most of the people I come across seem to be suffering from a lemming syndrome, and even if it IS an urban myth, it is still a good and understandable illustration.

Don’t take Popper too seriously. He’s good for maths, but not as a prophet for living, despite his personal influences being Socrates and Einstein. Far too negative!

Cheers

Gerry

Posted by Gerry Mander on 05/04/07 at 10:18 AM

Look Gerry the lack of consideration given to temperature and climatic variations over the ages is a serious flaw in the Co2 driven climate change argument. It is not an insignificant slanted argument. It only sticks out like a sore thumb to those convinced of one theory. This theroy turned politcal activist movement will go the way of all other activist movements.

Until then I look forward to buying a pencil from you downtown. Could you please use a catchier font on your ‘The end is nigh’ billboard though?

Well you’re hardly one to talk about negativity, Gerry. Of all those who pollute the columns section of this site with their doomy, alarmist and misinformed views, you are probably in a close race with Brenda Rosser for the title of the most negative, doomy and alarmist of the lot. Indeed, you just might be ahead of her.

As for prophets for living, anyone who needs one is already off on the wrong track. But Popper did make some important contributions to the philosophy of science.

Proposition: IF climate change is real (and it’s possible, despite only 98% and not 100% scientific consensus being achieved), and we Homo sapiens fail to take immediate (and, yes, costly) steps to reverse it, we (90% of us, say) die out (in considerable discomfort too).

But if it’s not real, we can all get away with going on as we do now (at least until the oil runs out). So no worries. No pain. As a bonus we get to laugh at all the dopey doomsayers.

Anyone like to do some sums with probabilities and the relative penalties associated with false positives and false negatives? Do you insure your house?

Are we really all so keen to keep on with our present lifestyles that we genuinely don’t care WHAT THE ODDS ARE that the IPCC scientists might be right? I can believe exactly that about Gunns Ltd or John Howard, but I had hoped that Joe Blow in the street (or TT blogger) was more intelligent.

Oh, but Hah! 90% of us dying out! What utter alarmist rubbish! Even if climate change is real, we’ll cope OK. If you want to take this line, Kevin et. al., please provide us with a detailed survival plan for use “if” we frogs start finding the water getting uncomfortably hot. Include methods of coping with the resource wars which “might” happen after most of the arable land has been desertified and piped water supplies to most major cities have ceased.

Posted by Neil Smith on 06/04/07 at 05:08 PM

So it is negative to attempt to save the planet?

It s getting a bit wearisome. Dr Bonner, with the full backing of Tomas and Herbert steadfastly refuse to recognise that there is any danger, and all the top scientists of the world who have given warnings of global warming and its dire consequences are misinformed or are over-reacting.

Today it has happened again. USA and China have attempted to water down the latest long awaited scientific study and want the wording changed to reflect their own political agendas. The warnings are strong, and appear to be saying that the previous studies have underestimated the problem.

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! It’s time to stop dreaming and DO something. It doesn’t need a rocket scientist to tell us that the situation is going to get worse. The danger IS real and it’s happening all around you if you care to open your eyes.

The three wise monkeys above all claim to have superior knowledge and are prepared to shoot any messenger, although if it came to a battle of wits, I’m sure they would all score in the fifty percent region.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 07/04/07 at 12:14 AM

Nostradamus. Remember that name!

Isn’t it nice to have everything that you have been saying for the last year or so being vindicated by 250 of the world’s top scientists, regardless of the fact that what they actually predict could be dubbed ‘Negative’ by some of our commentators.

And once more their report has been watered down by the politicians. Can’t have nasty, inconvenient facts that might affect ratings and upset the electorate. They could even request that we do something about it and jeopardise our future profits!

The exception, strangely enough, is the section that deals with Australia, which passed with little attempt to soften the blow from the local pollies. But then, that’s not really surprising as they don’t intend to do very much about it anyway.

Australia’s answer is to vapour on a bit about carbon trading and setting a low emissions tax of $5 per ton, (I wonder if that is applicable to forestry burns?) and concentrate on planting trees. I think it needs almost every square inch of the country to counteract the effects of our coal exports and what we burn ourselves, so the future of the country may be looking very green. (?) Except that last time they did that, they cut down all the big old ones, which they did not count, to make room for all the new little ‘uns, for which they were given lots of money and credits. Twenty years down the line, they intended cutting them all down again and turning them into chips, etc. There is a saying, ‘History repeats itself’.

From where I live just above 500 metres up a mountain, we have a lovely view to the north of about thirty to forty kilometres towards the Bass Strait. However, from here we cannot see the sea—yet!

Posted by Gerry Mander on 07/04/07 at 02:02 PM

To ignore the issue of global warming is now recognized as absolute folly and as for it being
due to human intervention ! of course it is ! without doubt ! as humans have only been mechanized and civilized these past 100 years or so with cars ,trains, ships, planes ,aerosols,heavy industry all reliant on fossil fuels etc ! so to try and compare this global warming with any other in the past has no correlation whatsoever .
Those who decry the obvious i would assume (in general )are ,unmarried , have no children or grandchildren and don’t give a tinker’s damn what befalls the planet after they left this place ,so
for my money, they are purely and simply, selfish, self serving and most importantly entirely irrelevant !
d.d.

Posted by don davey on 07/04/07 at 10:04 PM

Re #31, I think I’ve stated before that my view on the precautionary principle is that it is self-contradictory twaddle. Most wordings of it argue that incomplete understanding of impacts on the environment and/or human wellbeing is no excuse for permitting an activity potentially harmful to these qualities. But in many cases, both allowing a certain mode of development or industry and preventing or restricting it are potentially harmful to human health (in the latter case through the indirect impacts of unemployment), so the principle is useless, and the best thing to do is to simply try to weigh up advantages and disadvantages as best we can.

Neil’s proposition - well hey, he said it - *is* alarmist nonsense as there is *no* scenario with credible scientific support on *any* timescale under which global warming causes the death of 90% of living humans, or indeed such a decline at any stage, let alone a scenario under which immediate action must be taken to avert such a thing happening. Even if you throw in resource wars and so on as well, it’s just not even remotely likely to happen.

Barnaby Fake aka Gerry Mander seems to now be stooping to getting my surname wrong. He also mischaracterises my views, alleging that I refuse to recognise any potential problem caused by global warming when in fact I have already, on this thread, committed myself to the idea that the issue should be addressed. “Gerry”, wanting to save the planet from real threats is one thing, but exaggerating the degree of threat and implying that failure to adhere to your program will result in doom is most certainly a negative action, and a melodramatic one. I also can’t recall a word of babble you’ve spouted at any stage that has been vindicated by anything. Feel free to post links so we can see what a genius in your own lunchbox you must be. As for comparing yourself to the bogus seer Nostradamus (whose alleged strike rate rests mainly on the ambiguity of his incompetent twaddle, and to a lesser degree on fabrications and interpretational errors), I’m not sure which of Nostradamus and yourself should be more insulted by that call. I suspect you will now say that because you have been frothing random and not terribly specific envirodoom at us now and then, then any scientific report that says anything is less than absolutely rosy with the planet will be counted by you as a hit. That’s not how it works - what *specific and explicit prediction* have you made that the scientists support?

I’m really not that interested in what “Gerry”, Neil and unqualified others think is going to happen to the world as a consequence of global warming, and there is no more point creating action plans for their palpitating little nightmares than there is in creating action plans to deal with an immediate thylacine takeover of Earth. I’m more interested in the views of independent scientists *and economists* who are neither spokespeople for industry nor too chummy with the United Nations.

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 08/04/07 at 06:00 PM

Dr Bonham,

I think you have turned the Precautionary Principle on its head.
I have inserted the missing word.

‘I think I’ve stated before that my view on the precautionary principle is that it is self-contradictory twaddle. Most wordings of it argue that incomplete understanding of impacts on the environment and/or human wellbeing is no excuse for (NOT) permitting an activity potentially harmful to these qualities.’

Your following statement justifies the inaction and is typical of a government response, allowing them to maintain their status quo.

‘But in many cases, both allowing a certain mode of development or industry and preventing or restricting it are potentially harmful to human health (in the latter case through the indirect impacts of unemployment), so the principle is useless, and the best thing to do is to simply try to weigh up advantages and disadvantages as best we can.’

I hope that my predictions do not come to pass, but I seem to have a fair amount of backing from the 250 scientists who three days ago presented their report to the UN. I refer you to their report, albeit, watered down, as usual. In the nit-picking of detail and wording, which is supposed to discredit the observations and exonerate any major participants from any responsibility or blame, I feel would find favour with you. It is a very popular attitude with big business and the government that they sponsor, and your own cries of ‘proof’ and ‘Where are your references?’ would certainly strike a chord with them.

Maybe these are some of your many (or potential) clients that you referred to in a previous post?

I have seen absolutely nothing in any of your posts that proposes a solution to any of the problems. There is nothing except denial, and yet you call me ‘negative’. Are we to wait for even more scientific reports on what appears to be the obvious before you will take notice? I think my own precautionary principle is a far better option, where the results of inaction are even more likely to prove ‘potentially harmful to human health.’

Posted by Gerry Mander on 09/04/07 at 12:34 PM

No idea what you’re babbling about at the top of your post there “Gerry” - if you check my wording carefully you will discover that it is actually your NOT which turns the principle on its head.

Since you continue to falsely accuse me of denying the problem I must spell it out, for which I am sorely tempted to bill you. In post 11 I wrote “PS Put me in the orange category on the top graph; the bottom graph is too simplistic to be bothered with.” The orange category on the top graph, since I have no faith in your ability to find it and less in your ability to read, is “should be addressed, but its effects will be gradual, so we can deal with the problem gradually by taking steps that are low in cost”. This is not denial of the problem at all, it is just a rejection of alarmism, which has an abysmal track record as an approach to environmental problems, especially global ones.

Furthermore you claim that my comments about the precautionary principle are excuses for inaction. They are not. They are “excuses” for, as I explicitly stated, weighing up advantages and disadvantages as best we can. That is actually, in some cases, an extremely challenging and sharp-edged policy process, especially where one has to weigh up values and costs of very different natures to each other. In other cases it turns out that nearly all benefits lie in the same direction and then it is rather easier. The so-called “precautionary principle”, however, is often an excuse for bad and lazy policy that shuts up shop as soon as an action might have any negative consequence.

You refer to predictions. What explicit and unambiguous predictions have you made? I already challenged you to cough up on this point and you failed.

Accusations of watering down are commonplace in these debates. Rather than assuming political watering down in every case where editing occurs it would be better to examine each particular case in detail - consider what was left out, via what process, and how robust the science behind it was or wasn’t. Political interference in reports is of course far from unknown, but quality control is extremely important for the credibility of the final products, and many accusations of interference that are made on that account turn out to be groundless.

The reason I haven’t been proposing specific solutions is simply that I am not sufficiently expert to do so, and nor are virtually all of those proposing specific solutions on this site. I would prefer the running on that aspect of the issue to be left to people who are expert in the relevant fields. My interests in the issue are (i) impacts on wildlife (ii) the nature of the public debate.

Even if there was nothing but “denial” in my posts, that would not make them negative in nature. It would in fact make them optomistic, positive and affirmative about humanity’s ability to not mess up the planet - but unrealistically so, which is why my posts are not like that and will not be no matter how many times you pretend that they are.

It’s curious. For many years I ardently wished the green movement would get onto a *real* environmental issue like global warming instead of all the trumped-up silly ones it likes to agitate about. But now that we’ve reached that point, the idiocy level from the dumber dark greens is making it extremely hard not to be completely cynical about the whole thing. I am doing my best to be accurate under these circumstances, but I’d appreciate it if the dingbats would stop giving serious concern about this issue a bad name with their usually apocalyptic nonsense. It’s only going to make people switch off over time, and that is in nobody’s interests at all.

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 09/04/07 at 10:44 PM

The dingbats only know one way though Kevin. Ridicule then react. The ridicule is plain to see anywhere on this blog site.

The reaction is now usually of the essence, If you question the scientific findings and method then you are a denier or a stooge of some description. This is another key reason why the credibility of these groups including the IPCC will come increasingly under question.

Posted by John Herbert on 10/04/07 at 10:27 AM

Bonham said: “The reason I haven’t been proposing specific solutions is simply that I am not sufficiently expert to do so, and nor are virtually all of those proposing specific solutions on this site. I would prefer the running on that aspect of the issue to be left to people who are expert in the relevant fields.”

Clearly we’re reading the words of a man that sees the world with dead eyes. In his mind there are no moral or ethical principals. The natural world has mere function. It is seen to be without purpose of its own. No magic. No spirituality.

So we can leave our life decisions to ‘the scientific experts’. Science, he says, is everything. Bonham doesn’t think that the exercise of science requires a human justification. It is ALL. Objectivity, he says, is achievable, and the only measure of ‘right’.

Philosophers such as Theodore Roszak see it differently. We refuse to admit, says Roszak, that urban industrialism is erected upon a culture of alienation and that science-based industrialism must be disciplined if it is to be made a spiritually, even physically livable place. “There must be a drastic scaling down and decentralising; altogether a renunciation of excesses of power and production.” But, he says, this renunciation must be experienced as a liberation, not a sacrifice. We need to be selective in our “winnowing out of the industrial experiment…But selection required a criterion of judgement. And here, the issue lies between those who believe that the culture of science can somehow generate its own principle of life-enhancing selection (the ideal of secular humanism)..and those (like myself) who believe that hope is bound to finish a despairing vanity.

The only standard of selection that will aply in these matters must grow from a living realisation of what human destiny is. Perhaps no single mind, no single culture can grasp that destiny whole..”

“...Such is my awful Vision;
I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep
And its fallen Emanation, The Spectre and its cruel Shadow.
I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once Before me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings,
That I may awake Albion from his long and cold repose;
For Bacon and Newton, sheath’d in dismal steel, their terrors hang Like iron scourges over Albion: Reasonings like vast Serpents Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations.

I turn my eyes to the Schools and Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire,
Wash’d by the Water-wheels of Newton; black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation: cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other, not as those in Eden, which
Wheel within Wheel, in freedom revolve in harmony and peace.

Blake

Posted by Brenda Rosseer on 10/04/07 at 12:52 PM

Dear Dr Bonham,

I fear we shall never agree.

I too have studied Philosophy and Psychology and I also have a few degrees after my name. From what you said earlier, I can see quite clearly the influence of Sir Karl Popper in your methods and thinking.

Very basically, the Modus tolens that he advocates, in simplistic terms states:-
If the theory is true, then the prediction is true.
The prediction is not true.
Therefore, the theory is not true.
All these statements and predictions are then put to the critical test for ‘looseness’ and strict evaluation ‘falsification’ rules are applied before being admitted as a theory. A ‘destructive’ test, if you like.
It might supply a more accurate and scientifically acceptable result, and explains your insistence on proof and references, but I believe that Popper’s theories also have shortcomings. They are not a philosophy for Life. (I know the thing in full, so I do not need an explanation of the details)

I personally prefer to paint with a broader brush and acknowledge and learn from the previous 2 500 years of philosophical thought and wisdom, not brand it as ‘of only historical value’.

Popper’s exactitudes do not allow for possibilities of truth where an effect is observed and the initial premise is uncertain, or allow for a prediction that is based on any thing other than a mathematically provable scientifically theory.

My own preference is along the lines : We see an effect, therefore we may deduce that there is a cause. The cause may not be obvious or provable by mathematical logic, or we may even be wrong in our deductions, but that does not negate the reality of the effect that we observe. If the effect is deleterious to our well-being, and there is a possibility of a cure for this effect, we are better taking that path than waiting to find out the true nature of the cause. Admittedly, the remedy could be more effective if a true cause could be found, but in the meantime, if we do nothing, the patient could die.
Because there is already an effect, we may be too late for prevention, so it might be more advantageous to concentrate our efforts on finding a palliative or a way to negate these symptoms than looking for a cause.

I think this is a better and more practical explanation of a ‘Precautionary Principle’.

I do have many practical suggestions on how to counteract and ameliorate the effects of global warming, but not here.

I leave you with this ; ‘It is sometimes necessary to take a giant stride. You cannot cross a chasm in two short steps.’ David Lloyd-George.

Barnaby Drake

Posted by Gerry Mander on 10/04/07 at 01:39 PM

Hi John Herbert,

A ‘denier’ is a small French coin worthapproximately half a sou—about the same value as most of your comments.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 10/04/07 at 01:51 PM

Well well well, it’s Brenda Rosser joining in the babble brigade. Brenda, your entire response to my first quote is a complete non sequitur. Be that as it may, I’ll also point out that while I do indeed know that moral and ethical principles have no objective reality, that does not preclude acting in a kind or beneficial fashion to selected other people. You, however, are not one of them. Far from the natural world being purposeless, living things within it (at least) are motivated by their own purposes. Magic and spirituality are senseless mumbo-jumbo and indeed I do not believe in either.

Furthermore, I do not believe that science is everything, but when it comes to a question of a matter of fact, nothing else appears to work, least of all apocalyptic bleating. Brenda’s use of “right” following that relies upon the usual slippery confusion between “right” (in the sense of accuracy about factual issues) and “right” (in the sense of para-morally correct). I am not saying that policy development should be left solely in the hands of scientists but I am saying that, on the question of what can effectively be done about the issue, only experts are likely to make effective contributions. Once the advantages and disadvantages of possible approaches are known, then which approach to take becomes a matter of general political discussion.

Brenda then trots out her usual tryhard-subundergraduate-essay style (rather like a Bryan Patterson column in fact, arguably worse!) of trying to pretentiously apply the thoughts of others to a debate, perhaps in a vain search for authority. In this case Brenda refers to one Theodore Roszak, who she claims to be a “philosopher”, somewhat debatably. In general Roszak’s claims as presented by Rosser are ambit babble with no substantiating evidence and can therefore be naturally ignored. One point is of interest even despite this though - Roszak’s comment about a criterion of judgement (of which he gives a “principle of life-enhancing selection” arising out of secular humanism as an example.) Roszak is wrong because society does not require belief in a single such criterion to survive or even thrive. Not to namedrop but to give credit where it is due, anyone familiar with either Berlin’s agonistic liberalism or Habermas’s intersubjectivity would know that a consensus on meaning is not required for decisions on questions of value to be made within a political system. Of course, there will always be groups who get tired of always losing the vote and resort to more violent methods, but they can be thwacked or humoured as the case may be - the non-sentences handed out to green protestors in recent court cases might be viewed in the latter light.

Gerry, I *hope* we shall never agree! I don’t see any likelihood of you accepting my viewpoint and it would be a serious disaster if I was to go anywhere near yours. :)

Actually you probably overestimate the influence of Popper on my views, just because I happen to have singled him out as about the first philosopher of science who is actually still worth reading in the sense of any potential applicability at all. Your argument against Popper’s “exactitudes” and their impacts on possibilities of truth is incorrect, because the recurrence of a persistent effect can be tested as a theory even if its causes are unknown. Also, being in no position to test the truth or otherwise of a hypothesis *at a particular point* (and the last four words are very important here) does not preclude action on the basis of it being potentially correct. Your argument also fails to acknowledge that in some situations (both medical and environmental) there exist “cures” that are worse than the “disease” they are applied to.

Where you write “Because there is already an effect, we may be too late for prevention, so it might be more advantageous to concentrate our efforts on finding a palliative or a way to negate these symptoms than looking for a cause”, I actually agree that looking for ways to mitigate the issue as well as to prevent it is valuable (since whatever we do some increase in warming may well happen anyway). However, of course, the word “palliative” is far too negative in this context.

A more crucial issue re your comments about Popper is this: it is not the job of objective philosophy (what little of it exists, if any) to supply a “philosophy for life”. Meaning is something you find for yourself, or fail to find, as the case may be. Whether what you do is valuable to you is an entirely subjective thing, as is how your existence is viewed by others and how they then respond to it. If you have a crisis of meaning then that is either an issue of your circumstances which you may or may not be able to resolve, or else something you can go see a shrink about. The whole search for an objective meaning in life and a single right path of human conduct in philosophy has been nothing but one great category error and a stupendous waste of intellectual effort, university funding and trees. If you’re looking for someone who approaches my views on this whole “philosophy of life” nonsense, I suggest you try Max Stirner! All the rest I’ve come across (including Nietzsche for all the brilliance of his debunking of badly-motivated false solutions) appear to have been snapping at phantoms (and I include all the existentialists and “postmodernists” I have so far read in this criticism, since all of them seem to be just more weak backdoor moralists.)

What is it—ridicule then react? Priceless, coming from you, Monsewer. In blindly endorsing Dr Bonham’s appraisal of certain posters to this thread as ‘dingbats’, which you are of course perfectly entitled to do, you position yourself as Chief among them.

Keep it up, please.

Posted by Cameron on 10/04/07 at 09:56 PM

There are 2 documents on their site that summarize the latest reports. They are pretty thorough but abridged versions of the whole report.

It’s probably worth reading them in relation to this thread, especially for disscusion purposes.

I saw one of the head scientists on TV last week talking about how the process was really drawn out as it was difficult to achieve consensus because many scientists did not fully agree and much effort was put into publishing only data that could be proven.

He also mentioned that once the scientists had agree don what to publish, the politicians (the intergovernmental part of the IPCC) editing the reports and adjusted some of the wording.

I am not sure if you could call it ‘watering down’as, if you reed the above docs, they are fairly strong and clear in their findings but it’s obvious that much lengthy debate was activated and the reports were aligned to present factual findings and be somewhat politicaly ‘correct’.

Make up yr own minds.

Posted by banjo pickin wood nerd on 11/04/07 at 06:37 AM

There was no blind endorsing of Kevins argument, Cameron, unless you are inferring that I am incapable of understanding his ruminations.

Again I think you are projecting Cameron. Your transparancy is becoming evermore apparent. You also seem to have demonstrated quite neatly my theory of ridicule then react on behalf of your ilk, nice work.

I find Bonham has a depth of argument that you rarely find on blogs like this and certainly not on this site itself. And in this particular case he is carefully deconstructing a (!) in Barbnaby which I, for one am enjoying very much. As you were gentlemen.

Posted by John Herbert on 11/04/07 at 12:03 PM

Oh dear, Doctor Bonham, what a dreary, sunless life you must lead, where everything is reduced to provable scientific components and dry philosophical tracts. A test-tube existence where everything and every action needs a scientific reason and a proof and be stripped of any emotional or ‘human’ content.

Dr B. ‘The whole search for an objective meaning in life and a single right path of human conduct in philosophy has been nothing but one great category error and a stupendous waste of intellectual effort, university funding and trees. If you’re looking for someone who approaches my views on this whole “philosophy of life” nonsense, I suggest you try Max Stirner!”

I did. This is what I found.

‘Leszek Kolakowski said that Stirner, next to whom “even Nietzsche seems weak and inconsequent,” is indeed irrefutable; nevertheless, he must be banished at any cost, because he destroys “the only tool that enables us to make ethical values our own: tradition.” Stirner’s aim of “destruction of alienation, i.e. the return to authenticity would be nothing but the destruction of culture, a return to an animal state ... to a pre-human condition.” Hans Heinz Holz warned that “Stirner’s egoism, were it to become actualized, would lead to the self-destruction of the human race.”

‘Stirner criticized the radical Enlightenment thinkers of his time, because they had only “murdered God,” thus only disposing of the “other world outside us”; because they, the “pious atheists,” would nevertheless have retained the basis of religious ethics, that “other world in us,” and would have realized this only in a secular form. The true liberation of the millennia-old chains is, however, accomplished only when this other world, too, no longer exists, opined Stirner.’

This was the influence on Nietzsche and subsequently Hitler in his rather tortuous doctrine of a Master Race.

‘With the phrase “other world in us,” Stirner meant precisely that psychic authority which Freud first introduced in 1923 under the appropriate name of “superego.” The superego comes into being in the individual as the essential result of enculturation of the child. It remains the refuge of value-based attitudes, which were brought about early in life in pre- and irrational ways and can be influenced later only in a very limited scope. Although held by the individual as being the core of its autonomous Self, the superego is in fact the epitome of heteronomy.’

However, what this does not acknowledge or allow for, is any value of the great pool of human culture religion and philosophical thought of all previous generations. All is lost to this doctrine of Absolutism and Nihilism, and the doctrine of the ‘New Human’ without the influence of God, morals, emotions or contrary ideas. This is a glorification of the ego and superego of the individual with little or no concern for anything beyond self. All else in this selfish view of life is of little or no consequence or interest, and the opinions of others do not matter if they are not within this narrow, highly stereotyped view of existence, where there is no raison d’etre or purpose, other than one’s own survival and ego.

I think I have seen this attitude expressed many times in the views of Dr Bonham.

I would recommend your own second option—go and see a shrink.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 12/04/07 at 09:53 AM

#44. However, of course, the word “palliative” is far too negative in this context.

‘In this context’ I would consider building levees against rising tides, insulating ones house and installing rainwater tanks as ‘palliative’ measures. They do solve the problem of global warming, but they alleviate the symptoms.

I would not consider this negative.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 12/04/07 at 10:00 AM

#47. ‘Ruminate’ is what cows and Herberts do. I don’t think Dr Bonham, with all his faults, would like to be associated with that.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 12/04/07 at 10:04 AM

I’m sure he can speak for himself should he chose Barny. Read ‘em and weep.

Another thing, I can’t see why calling you a person who would have been a member of the U.K. band who had a number one single with “the only one I love,” in the early nineties, The Charlatans, would need to be censured by our esteemed ed.. I guess with the loose cannons out there on the left fringe one can’t be too carefull can one.

Posted by John Herbert on 12/04/07 at 12:13 PM

#49,

That should read: They do not solve the problem of global warming, but they alleviate the symptoms.

Posted by Gerry Mander on 12/04/07 at 12:15 PM

By the way Gerry and all you buyers of the global warming shrill. When you finally work out that the theory is bunk will I get an apology. Will the nuclear reactors you have helped build be shut down? I guess not.

Professor Ian Plimer, prize winning geologist at the University of Adelaide has spelt out clearly enough even for the zealots to understand that our activities have nothing to do with climate. He has plenty of friends who realize truthis out of style so

It is hysteria that has a mind of its own, just ask Mel and Kochie they are really behind it and all those hideous rockers who are busy flying around the world saying don’t fly around the world. The idiots have bought it and there are now votes in it, in our lowest common denominator electral system.

The lack of critical thinking by those on this site who like to portray a intelligent persona is really striking.

Prof Plimers article was in the papers today. I could not however find it in the fairfax press and don’t expect to see it on ABC or SBS tonite.

OH the red faces on the righteous chardonnay left? Not likely, more probable for them to say well its a good thing to do anyway…..P’haps. Moo you bloody choir!

Posted by John Herbert on 12/04/07 at 02:57 PM

You turn to emotional and personal patronisation when your argument is torn to shreds Mr. Drake.

Coupled with your turgid, thinly veiled nacissism and semantic obbsesiveness it is indeed the tactic of a seemingly bitter and twisted individual in total denial.

So you can find an article by an academic that supports your position: congratulations! Wow! I wonder what Professor Flannery would say?

Keep ruminating, Herbs old stick. Even cows have their uses occasionally.

Posted by Cameron on 12/04/07 at 06:45 PM

Herbert - there is a famous quote which I deem apposite, since it appears that you have finaly started to check some of the words of more then two syllables in the dictionary.

‘Your work is both good and original. That part that is good is not original, and that part that is original is not good!’

Posted by Barnaby Drake on 12/04/07 at 08:14 PM

There are plenty more acedemics that will concur that position put forward by Prof. Ian Plimer.

But there are millions more people who have a an ounce of nous who will agree as well. You guys betray your underlying prejudices by your shcool teacher critique of any opposing viewpoints. Where is your red marker pen?

Acedemics and universities are the ultimate tool of Government, not the other way around. You boys can dream on in your theorectical enlightenment but it time you will be exposed as bumblers in the dark.

Save your cliches for the bright young bilbies of the neo-feral nightmare that is post modern Australia, Barny.

The script reads fads and philanthropists deal guilt in existential poker but the man on the land holds the ace of integrity and thus prevails.

Posted by John Herbert on 13/04/07 at 11:36 AM

Hey Tomas; knock, knock, you there?

As the only sane skeptic on this site I have a present for you (the others aren’t worth bothering about). Ready? Here it is:

Below is a complete listing of the articles in “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic,” a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:

Individual articles will appear under multiple headings and may even appear in multiple subcategories in the same heading.

Stages of Denial

1. There’s nothing happening
1. Inadequate evidence
* There is no evidence
* One record year is not global warming
* The temperature record is simply unreliable
* One hundred years is not enough
* Glaciers have always grown and receded

2. We don’t know why it’s happening
1. Models don’t work
* We cannot trust unproven computer models
* The models don’t have clouds
* If aerosols are blocking the sun, the south should warm faster
* Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
2. Prediction is impossible
* We can’t even predict the weather next week
* Chaotic systems are not predictabl 1. It happened before
* It was warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum
* The medieval warm period was just as warm as today
* Greenland used to be green
* Global warming is nothing new!
2. It’s part of a natural change
* Current global warming is just part of a natural cycle
* Mars and Pluto are warming too
* CO2 in the air comes mostly from volcanoes
* We are just recovering from the LIA
3. It’s not caused by CO2
* Climate scientists dodge the subject of water vapor
* Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect
* There is no proof that CO2 is causing global warming

4. Climate change is not bad
1. The effects are good
* What’s wrong with warmer weather?
2. The effects are minor
3. Change is normal
5. Climate change can’t be stopped
1. Too late
* Kyoto is a big effort for almost nothing
* Climate change mitigation would lead to disaster
Scientific Topics
1. Temperature
* There is no evidence
* The temperature record is simply unreliable
* One hundred years is not enough
2. Atmosphere
3. Extreme events
1. Temperature records
* One record year is not global warming
* It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga
5. Oceans
* Sea level in the Arctic is falling
6. Modeling
1. Scenarios
* Kyoto is a big effort for almost nothing
* Hansen has been wrong before
2. Uncertainties
* We can’t even predict the weather next week
* Chaotic systems are not predictable
* We cannot trust unproven computer models
* The models don’t have clouds
7. Climate forcings
1. Solar influences
* Mars and Pluto are warming too
* It’s the sun, stupid
8. Paleo climate
1. Holocene
* It was warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum
* The medieval warm period was just as warm as today

* Global warming is a hoax
* There is no proof that CO2 is causing global warming
Types of Argument
1. Uninformed
* There is no evidence
* One record year is not global warming
* One hundred years is not enough
* There is no proof that CO2 is causing global warming
2. Misinformed
* It was warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum
* The medieval warm period was just as warm as today
* Antarctic ice is growing
3. Cherry Picking
* It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga
* Antarctic sea ice is growing
4. Urban Myths
* The medieval warm period was just as warm as today
* CO2 in the air comes mostly from volcanoes
5. FUD
* The temperature record is simply unreliable
* Glaciers have always grown and receded
* Climate scientists dodge the subject of water vapor
* Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect
* Current global warming is just part of a natural cycle
* Kyoto is a big effort for almost nothing
* Mars and Pluto are warming too
6. Non Scientific
* Global warming is a hoax
* Kyoto is a big effort for almost nothing
* Why should the U.S. join Kyoto when China and India haven’t?
* Hansen has been wrong before
1. Silly
* There is no evidence
* Global warming is a hoax
2. Naive
* One hundred years is not enough
* Glaciers have always grown and receded
* Why should the U.S. join Kyoto when China and India haven’t?
* It’s cold today in Wagga Wagga
3. Specious
* The temperature record is simply unreliable
* Climate scientists dodge the subject of water vapor
* There is no proof that CO2 is causing global warming
4. Scientific
* Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect
* Chaotic systems are not predictable
* Observations show climate sensitivity is not very high
* Sea level in the Arctic is falling

Posted by banjo pickin wood nerd on 14/04/07 at 10:47 AM

Yet again the global noanthropogenicchange skeptics and deniers on TT demonstrate the lack of depth of scientific training among the masses and the inability to think for themselves. I could point out the problems with this site, but that would be tiresome. The anthropogenic warming experiment is underway - results will be in, in say 30-50 years - perhaps something useful in 10. I hope TT is still in operation so I can gloat (again) about the scientific illiteracy of many of its denizens.

Posted by Tomas on 14/04/07 at 08:35 PM

Tomas, what, those same masses with their ” lack of depth of scientific training .... and the inability to think for themselves”
that you hold in such high esteem when it so happens that you perceive them to be in the majority ie the so-called majority who want the pulp mill?

Or is that a different bunch of “masses”?

Posted by Nelly on 14/04/07 at 10:35 PM

61)Well Thomas, if you are only interested in proving yrself right and bagging others then I wish you the best of luck!

I posted that site for discussion purposes so I hope people can use it for engaging discussion on the skeptic issue if they so choose.

Last time I checked the ‘masses’ actually dont generally have scientific training, otherwise they would be scientists and we wouldn’t have the ‘masses’ just masses of scientists.

The masses rely on scientists for a clear picture or understanding of such issues. The info on CC is available from many sources and I think it is up to each person to inform themselves from the variety of data available.

As for thinking for oneself, well that is a tried and true method or disagreeing with everyone and if one does think for themself then they are not going to blindly accept what the scientists or skeptics are saying are they ?

GW is very big issue that will affect everyone in various ways, not just the domain of trained scientists.

It may be a little more helpful here Thomas if you could discuss the issue or the info on that site for the benefit of of TT users. Just planning to gloat in some years time suggests that you are only interested in yr personal views, not the issue or any realistic understanding of the ‘masses’.

Posted by banjo pickin wood nerd on 15/04/07 at 05:16 AM

from the spiked site linked somewhere above..

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2999/
“
For me, the infuriating thing about this debate is that it overlooks the main problem with the mainstream science on global warming. No, not that it is wrong, or that it is ‘swindling’ people, but rather that it has become deeply, almost irrevocably politicised. As a layperson largely following this debate via my laptop, I can see that a scientific consensus has been reached which says there has been some global warming, and most scientists believe that man’s carbon emissions are contributing to that warming. There is still a clear need for debate, it seems, over whether manmade CO2 alone is the cause of warming, how much warmer the planet is likely to get, and what the consequences will be. The problem, however, is that this scientific consensus is being used by the powers-that-be to justify all sorts of inhumane, illiberal and repressive political measures, often with the support, or at least complicity, of the scientists.

Even when the science is ‘right’, it is never right to prostitute science for political ends. History shows us that the mixing of science and values, the use and abuse of science to direct the political and social life of a society, is never a good idea. It is bad for politics, and it is bad for science.”

This would seem to describe what a large stable of the ‘skeptics’ are reffering to. That whiles they acknowledge GW is real and that anthropgenic causes are definatley contributing in a large way, the issue has become highly politicsied and open debate seems to have stalled on many fronts.

Amen to #64 - to borrow from that modern day troubador Mr Noll “that’s what I’m talking about”.

Relatedly, Nelly - the consistency in my views about the mill and GW with respect to the masses is that I try to keep an open mind about the real issues and try not to regurgitate a particular political line. In this respect, science by consensus between scientists and politicians is deeply wrong-headed to my mind. Decisions about the balance between industry and the environment are more so in the political arena, and thus the masses are correct to exercise a view. In summary, I’m against and for the mass view over these two issues, respectively.

Posted by Tomas on 15/04/07 at 10:19 AM

Anyone else catch Andrew Bolt on Insiders this morning?

If you’re still out there, Herbs, Bolt’s another pin-up boy for your wall. You’ll have to move your poster of Piers, and the life-size colour portrait of Janet Albrechtsen, to make room for him, no doubt.

Seriously though, people like Bolt (and not just on the global warming issue) probably don’t pause much to consider how irresponsible they are. They are of course entitled to an opinion, as are we all, but to actively shout down any opposition to their opinion (as Bolt tried to do with Lenore Nicklin this morning) is not only reprehensible, but extremely short-sighted.

As with Alan Jones, I suppose that people pay attention to the likes of Bolt and accept his drivel as gospel. That’s the really scary thing.

Posted by Cameron on 15/04/07 at 03:58 PM

How come you never mention the drivel that comes out of Bob Browns gob Cameron. Surely you don’t think he is right all the time ala the Pope to Catholics.

I don’t consider myelf a sceptic when it comes to global warming just someone who thinks the facts don’t add up and that fear and ignorance is driving this whole thing through channels not unlike this forum and by people not unlike Cameron.

Posted by John Herbert on 15/04/07 at 09:20 PM

Bolt is a nut.

Sorry

Posted by pun on 15/04/07 at 11:04 PM

More intellectual laziness from this Mander misanthrope (#48) falsely thinking that just because my attitude to matters of scientific fact is one that involves requiring adequate evidence, that therefore I must live some joke of a life he has made up for me. Of course the real sunless one is Mander living his life under the twin clouds of envirodoom and illiberal moralistic idiocy - two of the biggest killers of joy out there.

I note Mander has gone off on a wild goose chase in search of clues to Stirner after I mentioned him, and come back so horrified that he quotes without due attribution. Since I have to do his homework for him, his source is http://www.lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html, actually a sympathetic piece which while quoting the hysterical reactions of the likes of Kolakowski and worse also puts a strong case for Stirner as being still worth reading.

Mander’s own reflections on this show that he is totally clueless in the field of philosophy. To even link Stirner via the equally innocent Nietzsche with Master Race gibberish just because some Nazis and fascists grabbed for just about everything they could find as an excuse for their behaviour, is just loopy when all the Master Race was clearly just another “spook” set above the individual that Stirner would have totally rejected.

Mander’s pitiful tryhard behaviour continues with claims that views like Stirner’s deny value in various things. Stirner’s view does not deny value in culture at all but quite explicitly sees it as a thing that can be used in all kinds of ways (observation as a form of enjoyment or education is clearly by implication among those). When referring to religion, one must distinguish between the meaning of “value” that implies utility and that which implies truth - Stirner’s view denies the latter, but not necessarily the former. As for philosophical thought, Stirner could hardly be accused of denying the value of past work when he himself was extensively inspired by Hegel. (Too much so, in my view, as it happens - had he broken from Hegel more clearly perhaps his epistemological views would have been more coherent.)

Stirner’s work does not necessarily reject morals, but merely rejects enslavement by them. A person can choose to help others at their own expense without being irrational (unlike in, say, the capitalist egoism of Ayn Rand). What Stirner does is caution against enslavement to Christian style moralising as a source of such benevolent desires in even a subjective guise - likewise the selective approach to being nice to others I mentioned in my reply to Brenda. And although his work might be seen as glorifying the ego, what it really does is simply reject bogus constraints on it. It is up to the individual to decide how much they want to glorify themselves!

*sigh* The more I read the clearer it is that Mander is descending so far into unsubstantiated false stereotypes about the consequences of views like Stirner’s (and mine, which are similar but distinct) that I can’t be bothered with him anymore. From now on, unless he learns to support his claims more adequately with evidence rather than hysterical moaning, and ensure all his claims about me are 100% proven and accurate, I will bracket him with Brenda Rosser, DON DAVEY and others too hopelessly lost to be taken seriously, ignoring nearly all his worthless babble and only bothering to give him his comeuppance every now and then.

Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 16/04/07 at 12:34 AM

“#71. I will bracket him with Brenda Rosser, DON DAVEY and others too hopelessly lost to be taken seriously, ignoring nearly all his worthless babble and only bothering to give him his comeuppance every now and then.”

You seem to be moving more and more out onto a limb. You seem to have no sense of humour or any other social attribute that is acceptable outside the confines of your test-tube.

In your own words, I cannot be bothered any more with this twaddle!

Posted by Gerry Mander on 16/04/07 at 12:09 PM

Mainly, Monsewer, because Brown is not a columnist in a newspaper who people turn to for guidance, however misguided they may be in doing so.

Brown is an elected representative of his party—Bolt is an arrogant windbag who gets paid to disseminate his prejudiced opinions. There is, Herbs, a subtle difference between the two that I’m sure even an intellectual sophisticate of your long standing can discern.

Posted by Cameron on 16/04/07 at 03:36 PM

Airport Runway Seized By ActivistsPress Release

On 14 April, activists broke into Bromma Airport in Stockholm to occupy the runway for half an hour. The scheduled flight to Gothenburg  a very short distance indeed  was delayed, and some planes had to divert their landing. The ten activists, linked by chains and carrying a huge banner which read Stop domestic flights, managed to enter the airport and runway without being detected. After some five minutes, police arrived to the scene, but refrained from violent intervention. When the blockade had been carried to its planned end, the activists were arrested and informed of the formal charge of aggravated trespass. The most likely punishment is some heavy fines, but prison terms are possible.

The action was carried out by Climax, a group in Stockholm formed two weeks ago. It is the seed of a direct action-movement against the root causes of climate change in a country which has just recently woken up to the facts of ongoing global warming. Climax is inspired by Plane Stupid and Rising Tide. The action of 14 April, coinciding with the enormous National Day of Climate Action in the U.S., was the first of its kind to occur in Sweden. More is bound to follow soon. Check for updates (and pictures of the recent action) at Klimax.

Global action against global warming!

Klimax-Stockholm
2007-04-15

Posted by Jon Sumby on 17/04/07 at 08:15 PM

Are these your true colours Jon? Junkies in a socialist state antagonising against authority. If so you have a serious credibility problem.

Posted by John Herbert on 18/04/07 at 11:15 AM

I have just checked in with one of Jon Sumby’s favourite sites that he tipped for me - Spiked Online - and there is an article about a Tasmanian involved in the IPCC process. Interesting reading….

Ah yes, Aynsley Kellow, the man who strongly supported the growing of Genetically Engineered crops in Tasmania, a move that would have destroyed the state’s ability to niche market agricultural produce. A move that Tasmania’s major agricultural exporters were all opposed to. A move that would have had very few benefits, if any, while costing the state valuable markets. A move that he supported very shortly after arriving in Tasmania, having lived on mianland Australia previously.

Oil heavyweights influenced the report’s summary for policy-makers so that it does not show as clearly as it might how reducing fossil fuel burning could limit the impacts of climate change on human society.

Yohe, a co-ordinating lead author for the IPCC, acknowledges that nations have a right to staff their delegations as they want. Most countries sent delegates only from their environment ministries, but of the seven delegates representing Saudi Arabia at the negotiations, four were dispatched by the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources. The ministry has close links to four oil companies, including…’

Posted by Jon Sumby on 28/04/07 at 12:20 AM

i’am really impressed!!

Posted by sesso on 20/06/07 at 05:54 PM

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